Boxlike containers or bins, often referred to as "totes", are conventionally constructed of extruded plastic panels which have inner and outer sheetlike plastic layers transversely and rigidly joined together by a plurality of parallel ribs which define elongated flutes or channels. These plastic panels are utilized for defining the walls of the container, including both the bottom and side walls, with the top of the container conventionally being open. These plastic panels provide an economical construction technique and at the same time provide a container having reasonable strength and durability. In order to provide proper strength around the open top of the container, however, it is often necessary to provide a looplike reinforcing rod which is positioned to exteriorly surround the container side walls adjacent the upper edges thereof. In one known construction, the side walls have upper flaps which are folded outwardly and downwardly so as to partially surround and support the reinforcing loop in surrounding relationship to the side walls. With this known construction, the reinforcing loop functions solely to provide circumferential reinforcement around the side walls so as to prevent outward expansion thereof, and provides no other advantageous function. In this known container, stacking of loaded containers on top of one another is not feasible, and in fact the containers are not suitably designed to permit vertical load transfer between stacked containers, nor do they safely permit vertically stacked containers to be securely retained on top of one another.
Accordingly, it is an object of this invention to provide an improved storage container or bin which improves upon containers of the general type described above, and in particular relates to an improved container which is primarily constructed of extruded fluted plastic panels, and which provides adequate vertical strength associated with the container side walls and improved stacking characteristics associated with the containers so as to permit similar such containers to be vertically and securely stacked on top of one another.
In the improved container of the present invention, the container includes two opposed pairs of generally parallel side walls, each side wall including at least one upright extruded plastic panel disposed with the flutes extending vertically so as to provide vertical column strength. A stacking and reinforcing loop of metal rod is positioned in direct load-bearing engagement with the upper edges of the side walls, with the rod being fixedly secured to each side wall by appropriate securing flanges which are integral with the fluted material defining the side wall and which snugly wrap around the top rod and are fixedly secured to the respective side wall. The top stacking rod is also provided with a stacking bracket adjacent each corner of the container, which bracket is positioned outwardly and upwardly of the reinforcing rod so as to secure and cooperate with a lower corner of a second container when the latter is vertically stacked on a first said container, with the bottom wall of the second container being positioned vertically directly on the top stacking rod of the first container.
In the improved container, as briefly described above, the flaps which secure the top stacking rod are preferably provided with undercut grooves therein which extend through one outer sheet of the plastic panel, and also partially and transversely through the intermediate ribs, thereby leaving primarily only the other outer sheet which functions as a hinge portion so as to wrap around the top of the rod with the latter being secured within the undercut groove.
Other objects and purposes of the invention will be apparent to persons familiar with structures of this general type upon reading the following specification and inspecting the accompanying drawings.